POSSLQ

POSSLQ (pahs-<<schwa>>l-kyoo).abbr. A person of opposite sex sharing living quarters. • Although this term (which is used by the Census Bureau) is intended to include only a person’s roommate of the opposite sex to whom the person is not married, the phrase literally includes those who are married. This overbreadth has occasionally been criticized. See CUPOS.

“In the 1980 census, the United States Census Bureau — recognizing a societal change with numerous persons living together without being ‘officially’ married — counted not only persons who were ‘Single’ and ‘Married,’ but also ‘Persons of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters.’ The acronym is POSSLQ — and, of course, is pronounced possle-kew. It has been suggested that, although the source was stunningly unlikely, it was the Very Word that society has been looking for to describe these relationships: POSSLQ. Precise, businesslike, nonjudgmental. And, in its own way, sort of poetic, too.” Fischer v. Dallas Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n, 106 F.R.D. 465, 469 n.5 (N.D. Tex. 1985).

[Blacks Law 8th]